Radiation Oncology Journal Club (#RadOnc) – Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of September 29, 2014)

I’ve previously mentioned medical journal clubs on Twitter. Today I wanted to show some of what happens in the real conversation. The Radiation Oncology Journal Club (#RadOnc) has a very accessible model for managing the journal club and making it easy to engage in the conversation. After all, they know how busy doctors really are, and what scheduling is like. The journal club runs over the entire weekend. The conversation isn’t exactly synchronous (same time) or asynchronous (whenever), but rather semi-synchronous, a loosely defined time period where you can gather with friends and colleagues, but people tend to wander in and out of the conversation. However, it’s an international party, so you will hear comparisons about treatment standards in different parts of the world. They’ve explicitly stated that the journal club is bilingual, English/Spanish/Español, so there’s that to make it interesting (challenging) as well. Sometimes they are lucky, and can get the authors of the paper to step in and answer questions. One of the other quirky things about doing this on Twitter is that, even though the conversation is mostly other radiation oncologists and doctors, there are interested patients who come in and ask questions or share thoughts, concerns, and insights. It can be a great educational tool on both sides!